An informal moment with Lidia Brito

Luisa MassaraniLatin America regional coordinator, SciDev.Net

Last day of the conference… I was in the press room, very tired, thinking on what to write about, when the lovely and smiling Lidia Brito came into the room. Not even showing how tired she should be as co-chair of this conference…

We start talking in Portuguese – a Mozambique Portuguese much near of my Brazilian Portuguese than the one spoken in Portugal… I asked: “So Lidia, what next?”

Basically, the idea is to keep the level of engagement reached for this conference aiming to sensitize the negotiators of Rio+20. Next month, for example, a side event will be hold in New York, during the round for discussing the Rio+20 document.

Lidia Brito

In June, a five-day Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development will be held prior to the Rio+20, organised by the International Council for Science (ICSU), UNESCO, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, the International Social Science Council, the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

Both meetings aim to join different stakeholders and keep sensitizing the negotiators of Rio+20. But… how much the scientific community is in fact being heard during the negotiations?

According to Lidia, the hopes are high – same feeling expressed by Alice Abreu, ICSU Regional Coordinator for Rio+20 as a chat we had in Brazil a couple of weeks ago.

Both of them believe that the scientific community movements are being able to influence already the negotiations, as – they say – expressed in parts of the draft document.

“I think we will make the difference, but we still have a long way to go”, said Lidia.

“We are learning how to work differently, much more collaborative, in an inter and multidisciplinary way and we need to be prepared to answer the new scientific questions that are to be presented”, she believes.